What should I do if I pulled my record and it does not say DUI but it has a complaint listed? 11 Answers as of October 09, 2012

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Thank you for contacting my office for answers to your questions. Please understand that my responses are general in nature and the law often focuses on specific facts. Before making any legal decisions, you should go over all the facts and specific circumstances of your situation with a lawyer. Additionally, my responses do not create an attorney-client relationship. Your comments to me are confidential and I cannot repeat them. However, I am not representing you on this matter, unless we later establish a formal attorney-client relationship. Now to provide a response to your question. I encourage you to have a lawyer and the judge will try to get you to either use the public defenders or hire your own attorney. This is important because the DUI will stay on your record forever and if you get stopped again the punishment may increase significantly or mean mandatory jail. There are ways to challenge and win these cases but that requires having an attorney that knows the law. If you are going to try to do it yourself, that will be difficult. The maximum punishments for a first offense are one of the following: a fine between $150 and $1,000; not more than 72 hours of community service or between 48 hours and 5 days in jail. Your license will be suspended for a year and you will need to have an ignition interlock system installed in your vehicle if you want to drive. There is also a requirement for a substance abuse assessment and a 14 hour course.

You either have a record for DWI in New York or you have a DWAI or other conviction. If you are not in New york you should ask a lawyer in your state and be more specific. A complaint is the accusatory document, a conviction for a violation or a crime is what would be on your record, not a complaint.

If there is a possible mistake made in the manner that the court has recorded an arrest or conviction you may want to contact an attorney to review same, and if needed and necessary to correct the record.

The answer to your question largely depends on what it is that you want to do, and whether you have actually been convicted of a DUI yet. Additionally, we'd need to know where you pulled your record from in order to determine whether it accurately reflects any convictions you may have. If your DUI charge was recently brought but has not yet been handled by the court via a plea hearing or trial, then your record is not going to show a DUI conviction. A conviction will only show up on your record once you've appeared in court and have been found guilty of a DUI. If a DUI conviction was only recently entered, then it may be that the court has not yet processed the necessary paperwork to finalize this conviction on your record. Alternatively, it could be that the database you used to pull your record has not yet been updated so as to reflect a recent DUI conviction. There are a multitude of possibilities as to why a conviction is not currently on your record, so we would need more facts in order to accurately answer your question.

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